AMP Blog: janel yamashiro

Are you a media maker looking to learn new skills? Do you want to grow your expertise in mapping, beatmaking or website management? Registration is now open for Co.Open workshops in August! Co.Open is a media-making cooperative that provides design services, training, and professional development for freelancers and media makers in Detroit.

Turning points are moments when you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay where you are. Figuring out the next best move is a kind of improvisational dance – requiring much agility and willingness to be vulnerable, while stepping into the unknown.

Here at Allied Media Projects, we’ve arrived at 2014, having navigated many turning points over the past year with grace, thanks to the deep commitment to figuring-out hard questions on the part of our incredible staff.

"When they built the interstate highways through Detroit, they divided neighborhoods and paved a path to the suburbs. When we look at the digital divide, we see the information superhighway is doing the same thing: setting communities apart and giving the more affluent a path to abandon the city. For all of the Internet’s power to unite those of us who use it, how can we ensure that it does not divide us from those who don’t?"

Detroit is what the rest of the world has to look forward to. In Detroit we are growing a community of media makers, culture producers, technologists, and small business owners who are building a media-based economy at the city's grassroots. We believe that instead of trying to "bridge the digital divide" between our communities and existing technology, it is more important to reshape technology to meet our communities' needs.